Development Outcomes of World Bank Projects

Since 1995, after the release of an internal report that highlighted deterioration in its project portfolio, the World Bank has reported continuous improvements in the overall performance of the projects it finances. These assessments, summarized in the annual reports on development effectiveness prepared by its Independent Evaluation Group, suggest “satisfactory” project outcomes to have increased from 64% for projects assessed in 1994 to 76% in 2000 and 81% in 2008. However, the reports did not provide the underlying data that was used as the basis of these assessments. In line with its new policy of greater disclosure, it released for the first time in end-2011 its project evaluation database of 9,855 projects financed by the World Bank since 1968. The database contains assessments of project performance in various dimensions. The data from this database wer used to verify the published assessments of the World Bank. The analysis points to significant doubt about the reported improvement in performance and suggests that the reported improvement appears to have been mostly a result of pressures of management targets and less than full independence of the World Bank’s evaluation function.